Many people know about Wessex, the ‘Last Kingdom’ of the Anglo‑Saxons to fall to the Northmen, but another kingdom, Mercia, once enjoyed supremacy over not only Wessex, but all of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. At its zenith Mercia controlled what is now Birmingham and London ‒ and the political, commercial paramountcy of the two today finds […]
Anglo-Saxon women with power and influence
Annie Whitehead, historian and novelist, writes about the women who had power and influence in Anglo-Saxon England. Pre-Conquest women are rarely written about, so for my new book, Women of Power in Anglo-Saxon England, I decided to track them down and tell their stories. The original plan was to categorise them – queens, abbesses, witches, […]
The Battle of Brunanburh
When author Hilary Green heard that the long-forgotten site of the Battle of Brunanburh (937) had been located not far from where she lives, she had to find out more… Everyone knows about the Battle of Hastings, but how many of us have heard of the Battle of Brunanburh? Yet the outcome of this battle […]
In Search of Mercia
Annie Whitehead on research roadblocks, and writing history when the evidence is elusive. I spend my life writing about the characters who inhabited ancient Mercia. The history of this Anglo-Saxon kingdom is full of colourful characters, some familiar – Lady Godiva and Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians – and some not so well-known, but no […]